But seriously...

I'm still not sure if my previous post was legit what-the-heck commentary or participating in what i was bemoaning. But fortunately, my friend dirt (whose blog is much more eloquent than mine, even if she doesn't have the privilege of drawing on kid-generated potty humor for content) blogged this article by Robin Morgan today.

As dirt says, she voices issues better than I ever could. Just go read it.

There's no candidate who shares all my views, but more and more I'm getting to like Hillary, and I'm ashamed to say I was surprised to like her. I'm more ashamed to say that the reason I was surprised was that I'd bought into the popular perception of her. You know: the ice queen. The politico who never could be as wifey or maternal as probably she should be. The bulldog.

Why I never saw this as the double-standard and sexism that it is is beyond me. Maybe because it's become the norm. (I was going to describe it as "thinly veiled sexism" in the previous sentence until I realized it isn't veiled at all. Just not looked at.) Maybe because on the few occasions I have brought up such attitudes, I'm quickly shot down with a response that says, you're basically being paranoid. We don't need the gender movement anymore. Does more harm than good. And besides, no one is being denied any on-paper rights, are they? How is it that anyone's being repressed? Aren't you being a little over-sensitive?

Maybe it's because I do indeed have a few views that are considered pretty conservative, pretty red-state. Maybe not most of my views, but I've been in a constant mental dialogue with myself trying to reconcile these few views with the subconscious recognition that this issue isn't settled.

A friend a while back asked me if I was a feminist. I proceeded to talk at extreme length (what, me? I know, shocking) about how of course I was a feminist, but not like you think, not like the raving, shrill voices you hear. How I'm fully justified being both a feminist and conservative in a small handful of issues, because really, as I see it, I'm being more philosophically consistent. (At this point I launched into an extremely long treatise on just why and how I was being philosophically consistent. Again, I know. Shocking.)

But really, I was just trying to justify it to myself. Am I a feminist?

Yeah, I guess I am. And I'm pretty shrill sometimes, even.

Seriously. Go read Robin Morgan's article.

Also, watch this video. It's a few years old, but ... wow. Just wow. If three guys younger than my brother can put words to the issue, I am put to much more shame than I realized.

(Back to our regularly scheduled poopy and pukey humor in the next post.)